ONDO ELECTION: THE IROKO VS THE JAGABAN

POLSCOPE: Ondo Election: The Iroko Vs the Jagaban

Polscope with Eddy Odivwri, eddy.odivwri@thisdaylive.com, 08053069356

As you read this, the high-scale contest between the Iroko and the Jagaban is taking place. The two combatants are right in the village square called Ondo State. The two characters seem fully kitted to undo each other. Yes, it is the Ondo State gubernatorial election. Three main candidates are on the line up. They are Olusola Oke of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Rotimi Akeredolu of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) and Olusegun Mimiko of the Labour Party (LP). The latter is the incumbent governor, seeking re-election. The contest is strictly between the last two contestants. While the first two candidates are lawyers, the last is a medical doctor. Although Akeredolu is flying the flag of the ACN, he is largely seen as a proxy fighter.

The real combatant is Bola Ahmed Tinubu, alias Jagaban, former governor of Lagos State and national leader of the ACN. He  is squaring up against Mimiko, alias Iroko. The deep determination to crush Mimiko is seen in the attendant verbiage of  the ACN campaign lines: “we’d chase him out”, “we’d show him the way out of the Government House”, “Mimiko is an ingrate” , “We’d unseat him”. We will send him packing…” etc.

In a sense, it is an ego fight for Tinubu and the ACN machine. It is taken as an affront on the Jagaban fiefdom for one supposed subject –governor,  to dare to stand against the regional political order. The crying task is therefore to rein-in Ondo State, the only oil-producing state in the South west. This is even more so given the sold notion that Tinubu had indeed supported Mimiko in reclaiming his mandate. “I spent millions of Pounds on Mimiko”, Tinubu announced. If that be true, then Tinubu is even more determined to spend more million of Pounds to “chase out” the Iroko. But will the Iroko be moved? Will the Iroko be trimmed?  Will it be uprooted? Not likely! All the expressed angst and deft political stratagem from the Tinubu arsenal may amount to not more than a wild wind on an Iroko, which will cause the shedding of only weak leaves. Nothing will happen to the trunk, nor the roots.  At the end of the storm, the Iroko will stand firmer and fitter having shed some tired leaves.

I hear the understanding was for Mimiko to decamp into the ACN, after settling down. But he did not. He chose to be his own man, to the pain of Tinubu, the region’s godfather. And so the determination of the Jagaban squad is to teach the Iroko a lesson or two on how not to challenge one’s political chi.

And that is the crux of the matter. Will the Jagaban push down the Iroko or will the Iroko disgrace , defy  and even demystify the Jagaban? The Ondo electorate  are right now deciding the verdict. But if all the pre-election readings are correct, I fear Tinubu will return to Lagos with a broken ego and weaponry.

Instructively, the polls have not been consistent. Those commissioned by the PDP favour PDP, and those commissioned by the ACN say the ACN is leading and ditto the one commissioned by the LP giving victory to the LP. 

The Ondo electorate are informed and sophisticated. They will decide who will govern them, believing that their choice will not be circumscribed through electoral manipulations.